posted October 13, 2008
The concept of federal holidays marking significant milestones and events in our American culture is useful. We recognize our heritage by offering reflective appreciation at Thanksgiving. While our nation's religious heritage is under assault in the public square, we've somehow managed to hang onto Christmas. We anticipate and revel in the New Year and properly honor our soldiers.
Whether Memorial Day at the onset of Summer or Veterans' Day remembering our armed forces and the Armistice of 1918, we Americans must continue properly thanking those who give their careers, and many their lives, for our unique nation. Each Fourth of July we reflect on the arduous birth of our nation's freedom; each January we pause to reflect on many personal freedoms gained through the Civil Rights movement and the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
As Autumn approaches, we acknowledge the end of summer with a federal one day pass for laborers and the labor movement. Declared by Congress in 1879, we honor all our chief executives on Washington's Birthday (now commonly known as President's Day). Many Americans on that day wonder if celebration of the current office occupant is worthwhile. George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were each worthy of a holiday. Why must we continue elevating Christopher Columbus to that stature?
Although many other nations exceed our holiday count or have truncated work schedules written into their laws, it is time for us to shed one federal holiday. That day is Columbus Day, and it's time we rescind this annual foray into historic fakery.
I do not celebrate Columbus Day. We have no family events centered around this particular holiday, as it's little more than a bank closing inconvenience.
There are two strong reasons why Columbus Day should be removed from the list of federal holidays. Now as a good Catholic boy, I am not upset that the Knights of Columbus approached President Roosevelt to ask for special commemoration of this man. It is simply time that this particular pronouncement expires.
While I'd personally like to see most of President FDR's lingering establishments canceled, Columbus Day should be the first New Deal era memory to go.
First, Christopher Columbus was unremarkable. He didn't "discover" anything, and was more a con man and tyrannical governor than the mythical figure we've generated from fancy over time. Columbus oppressed those in his command and the indigenous people whom he encountered. His was not a character deserving to be memorialized, unless we wish to assign holidays to other prolific navigators and spice hunters of the same time period. We named our nation after Amerigo Vespucci, so no special holiday is necessarily due him.
Second, very few Americans actually "celebrate" Columbus Day. We curse when the bank is closed or we cannot carry on our ordinary commercial and governmental business. Columbus Day is far more an inconvenience than legitimate honor or patronage to any ethnic heritage. Maybe once in my life I'll prepare a meal of salted fish and molasses in Mr. Columbus' honor, but I doubt it.
Christopher Columbus was a busy sailor, but neither first nor finest in any situation or cause that would deserve a full-blown holiday more than 500 years after his death.
Please write your Congressman or Senator and forward this letter. It is more dishonorable than useful to continue this faulty "tradition". Keep a note on the calendar and continue teaching the history of Christopher Columbus, but next year I'd appreciate being able to visit a bank teller or government office unhindered by this defective holiday.
Jason Kibby
Ringgold
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Hear, hear!
Way to say it, Jason Kirby.
Pamela Killen
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Ignorance is bliss. Christopher Columbus was the European to discover a new world including two new continents. Was he the first human being here? No! But those people did not know there was another world out there. They had not traveled or discovered Europe. He thought there was a route to the Far East by going west and sure enough he was right. The only obstacle is our continent and that of South America.
We celebrate Columbus Day to honor the heroic voyage of a man against the odds, against nature, against the wisdom of the day, and sometime against his own crew. Americans have always appreciated the pioneer spirit embodied in Columbus. He crossed an ocean in three rather small ships. Remember the size of the Pinta replica here in Chattanooga last year?
We have to thank him for a lot. Because of this discovery European nations, including our own England, decided to colonize. America would not have been born had Columbus not thought to "Go West Young Man, Go West."
Cliff Sarbel
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